Free Love by Clare Naylor Page B

me up, you saucy young thing. What about you?”
    â€œI’m a much misunderstood and oftentimes maligned personage.”
    â€œAnd verbose,” he nipped in.
    Amy slapped his arm and continued, “You have no idea what it’s like working on fashion shoots all week. I just want to re-create beautiful scenarios from Keats poems, full of velvet and pre-Raphaelite lovelies, and instead I have to be hip and have models who look like heroin addicts in bondage gear.”
    â€œSounds good to me, can you introduce me?” he teased. She slapped him again and in a mock sulk refused to utter another word.
    â€œCome on, tell me, what do you really want to do?”
    â€œI want to write.” Amy confided her deepest darkest secret. It was loosened from her by a good deal of
vin rouge
but more by trust. She was quite shocked and unprepared for her disclosure and tried to backtrack.
    â€œTell me more.”
    â€œNo, I’m not sure. I just want to create beautiful worlds. Nothing clever, just kind of Enid Blyton for grown-ups, lots of imagination.”
    â€œBit like acting really,” he pondered. It was getting much darker outside, and Amy realized with misery that she’d come on her bike and her lights didn’t work. Orlando stood up to light the fire, and she sank her headback into the cushions on the sofa, closing her eyes, all heavy and soporific.
    â€œI think I have to go,” she said.
    â€œI’ve just lit the fire, you can’t.”
    â€œGod, I hate Sundays. When I was younger I used to think it was because I’d never done my homework, but now it’s like real life has to start again tomorrow. Burst bubbles.”
    â€œThat pit-of-the-stomach feeling when you know it’s all hanging over you. At least you don’t have to go to the wilds of Dorset away from civilization and reasonable human beings.”
    â€œYou’re forgetting that I work in the fashion industry, Orlando.”
    They both fell silent, accepting the inevitable. The day was over and Amy had to leave. They exchanged goodbyes on the doorstep, Amy hopping from one foot to the other to keep warm.
    â€œWell, that was lovely, thank you,” she said, not knowing whether to offer to reciprocate the invitation and just a bit too shy to do so.
    â€œNo, thank you, I haven’t had such a fun time in ages.”
    Kiss kiss. A bit more hopping from foot to foot, fiddling with bicycle lights. Good-bye. Good-bye.

C HAPTER 14
    F or the next two days the phone lines in London were burned up by Amy. She increased BT’s profit margin single-handedly and developed a crick in her neck. But she didn’t tell a soul about her afternoon with Orlando Rock. She heard her friends’ problems, talked about last night’s episode of
Men Behaving Badly
, and systematically phoned her way through her Filofax. Somehow, though, she could never find the right words: “Oh, by the way, I’m seeing that hugely successful actor Orlando Rock,” or “Have you seen
Henry IV
at the Haymarket? Yes, I had a remarkably intimate roast with Hotspur yesterday.
Actually
.” It just didn’t sound right. And do I really want them to know? To know what, anyway? We just had lunch, gorgeous, but—no, nothing happened. Amy hadn’t really thought the whole thing through, which was why she needed to tell someone, anyone. But not. Oh God, another pickle. So she toyed with her thoughts alone. Until Lucinda phoned her and shrieked, “I hear you have something to tell me!”
    â€œLucinda, what are you talking about?” Genuinely wondering what she meant. There was no way Lucinda could know.
    â€œExcuse me, I just thought we were friends.”
    â€œLuce, settle down. What are you talking about?”
    â€œBenjy just called to say that you’re going out with Orlando Rock.”
    â€œBenjy? But how? Don’t be stupid, of course I’m not.”
    â€œHe spoke to